I hadn’t given myself permission to think about what had happened, the events of the day swirling around me in a dark spiral that seemed unending. It had been only hours since my breakfast with Ethan, and yet everything in a single day had somehow gone horribly wrong. I tried to keep it at bay, but thoughts of Alex kept pushing into the forefront, the feelings of betrayal threatening to overwhelm me. I wanted to hate him, wanted to blame him for everything that had gone wrong, and yet, I couldn’t. He’d lied to me, delivered me into the Templars’ hands like a fucking gift, and yet the only reason I was laying here, safe in a bathtub was because he’d helped me escape. I would have gone to the warehouses without him—I had to remember that. I could still hear the guilt in his voice when he’d told me about London, and the vacant, hollowed out remnants of a girl who even I’d considered saving over myself. I could understand why he’d done it, but there was too much hurt and anger in me to forgive him for it.
I pushed Alex from my mind then, only to find thoughts of Carter crowding in. Carter, who always appeared just as I was sinking, but disappeared just as quickly. I knew I should be grateful to him for always stepping in to pull me from the edge, but I couldn’t shake the feeling abandonment I’d felt when I’d turned in the parking lot to find him gone.
The sound of water hitting the floor opened my eyes, and I sat up quickly, realizing I’d let the tub run to overflowing. Quickly I turned off the taps and peered over at the puddle I’d made on the floor, biting back a groan. I’d been in Ethan’s house for twenty minutes and already I was making a mess. The term walking disaster had never been more aptly applied.
I emerged from the bathroom a short while later wearing a baggy pair of sweats with the waist cinched tight and the bottoms rolled up, topped with an over-large and faded t-shirt, both items which Ethan left with a stack of towels by the sink. I’d towel dried my hair, settling for a fast finger comb, and limped out, having raided his medicine cabinet for antiseptic cream and Band-Aids for my knees. The smell of garlic wafted towards me once I entered the living room, and I followed it into the kitchen, where Ethan was standing over the stove, stirring one pot while another was boiling. He looked up when I entered, the spoon in his hand halting mid-stir as he took me in.
“Hey,” I said, awkwardly plucking at the shirt I wore, “Thank you for this.”
He stared at me a beat longer before seeming to realize that he was, then cleared his throat and turned back to the stove. “No problem. How are you feeling?”
“A bit better.” I thought about offering to help, then abandoned the idea to the exhaustion creeping into my bones, seating myself at the small kitchen table instead to watch.
“Good.” He reached for a pair of mismatched pot holders and lifted the boiling pot from the stove, carrying it to the sink, emptying spaghetti noodles into a colander with a rush of steam. “Are you ready to talk?”
He hadn’t looked at me, his attention on the food, and I gazed at his broad back without speaking until he finished at the sink and moved back to the stove. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore than I’d wanted to think about it, but I knew Ethan’s patience would eventually run out. The problem was I didn’t know what to tell him, or how much. Alex had betrayed me, but I had no desire to return the favor by spilling his secrets to the law, even if the law was over six feet of handsome who had pulled me from danger and was currently cooking me dinner. Working to save myself by spying on the Templars was one thing, selling out someone I knew was another.
It wasn’t only Alex that was making me hesitate though; I’d shot a man with the gun Ethan confiscated—a fact that would likely become known if he’d gone to the hospital or filed a report against me. “I shot someone.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop my conscience from blurting out my guilt.
Ethan paused, then continued piling spaghetti onto two plates. “Who did you shoot?” His tone was conversational, but I wasn’t fooled; it was an easy tactic to put someone at ease and pull information from them. My fingers twisted nervously in the fabric of the borrowed t-shirt, silent until Ethan finally turned and raised an eyebrow.
To his credit, he didn’t interrupt while I told him a somewhat modified version of what happened, leaving Carter and chanted mind control out of the story, and glossing over the part where Alex tried to trade me for London. Ethan joined me halfway through, silently setting a plate of spaghetti and marinara sauce before me, adding silverware and a tub of shredded Parmesan cheese to the table before sitting down and starting to eat. It wasn’t until I described the shooting that he paused to look up at me, a frown tugging down the corners of his mouth when I finished speaking.
“I’m going to call that in.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced up, reading the fear in my expression. “Relax. I’m only sending someone out to take a look at the scene. They won’t know it was you.”
Yet. The unspoken word knotted my stomach, but I picked up my fork and forced a mouthful of spaghetti past my lips, chewing mechanically while I listened to him issuing instructions to whoever was on the other end of the line. He called it a “tip” rather than a confession, which eased my anxiety enough to take another bite.
Ethan hung up the phone and dug back into his own plate, his expression thoughtful. “I’ve been trying to get a warrant to search that compound for a year now with no luck. Every single request has been rejected for lack of evidence. I need more, something a judge can’t ignore.” He stabbed at his spaghetti, his tone irritable. “About how many do you think came after you at the end?”
“I don’t know. A lot.”
“Twenty? Fifty?”
“I didn’t really have time to count.”
“Right.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair, levelling his gaze at me. “And the guy who drove you there. Who is he?”
“Just a friend.”
“The same friend who answered the door the other day while you hid in the bathroom?” My mouth fell open, too surprised to lie, and his lips twitched up. “Thought so.”
“How did you know that?”
“Not a hard guess, really. There’s only one entrance to that building. I saw you go in.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
“Surveillance makes me sound like less of a creep.”
“It’s still creepy.”
“Don’t worry,” he grinned at me suddenly, “I won’t tell anyone you talk to yourself when you’re alone.” His unexpected shift from brooding to charming caught me off guard, and the flutter in my stomach just then had nothing to do with nerves.
“I don’t talk to myself,” I said indignantly.
“Hey.” He raised his hands up, steel-blue eyes laughing, “No judgement here. We all get a little lonely.”
I glared at him and his smile grew wider. “I’m not lonely.”
“Of course not. You have your boyfriend to keep you company.”
There was an edge to my tone. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
He studied me for a beat in silence, his eyes darkening slightly with a subtle change in his expression that caused me to shift in my chair. “Good to know.”
I felt my cheeks color and dropped my gaze, my fork toying with the food on my plate. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“No. It was my idea to send you there, I won’t punish you for it.”
“So what happens now?”
He rose and carried his plate to the sink. “They’ll send a patrol to check the area, but they won’t be able to do much until daylight. We might as well get some sleep.”
The dirty dishes were stacked and left in the sink to soak before he led me down the hall to a door to the right of the bathroom, opening it and flipping on the light to reveal a small room housing a full-sized bed which had been pushed up against the wall to make room for several pieces of exercise equipment and stacks of boxes.
“I’m just across the hall if you need anything,” Ethan told me, and I nodded—not taking a deep breath until he’d go
ne, leaving me alone. I sat on the bed, listening to him move about the house before finally the hallway light blinked off and I heard his bedroom door close. Only then did I move, slipping from the bed and back into the hall. I’d left my clothes folded in a corner of the bathroom, and I groped for them in the dark, my fingers finally closing on the familiar material of my jacket. I gathered them to my chest and hurried back into my room, softly closing the door behind me. I dropped my jeans and shirt onto the floor, carrying just the jacket back with me when I climbed under the covers, clutching it like a small child might a favorite blanket, and burying my face into it when the tears finally came.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
Avvveerrryyyy.
The voice called my name, rasping like a hiss that slicked hot across my skin. Laughter followed, the sound washing over my awareness, dragging me from the depths of a dreamless sleep, leaving me trembling in its wake. Desperately I tried to scramble away, to dive back into the unknowing, but the laughter followed, tethering me in place.
I have brought you a gift.
“No.” I wanted the word to be strong, but I could hear the panic in me, the begging whimper of a trapped animal.
Yesssss. Again, the hiss curled its hold around me, slithering across my skin. Open your eyes. See what I have brought you.
Light flickered, the parking lot blinking into view before I slammed the veil down again. “No!” Laughter again, mocking my efforts to block it—the lights blazing around me again, this time blinding me in a searing flash of pain that caused me to cry out. I tried to throw my hands up and realized I had no hands. No eyes. No body. I existed only as my awareness. I existed to witness.
“NO!” This time a scream that echoed back at me, and the laughter rose—then faded away, the lights dimming from an unbearable brightness to one that allowed me to focus on the scene before me.
The parking lot.
My car.
A single figure kneeling on the pavement, a pool of blood on the pavement beneath the downturned face, shaggy brown hair wet and matted from the steady drip of red that streaked down a familiar torn t-shirt.
Carter.
“Carter!”
At the sound of his name, his head slowly rose in my direction. I rushed towards him, only to recoil in horror when the light revealed the hollowed gape of empty sockets, his eyes gouged from his face, leaving a heavy trail of blood down his cheeks.
“No,” I whispered, moving forward again—only to be flung back by a sudden rush of wind that scorched skin I did not possess, yet I still burned. Pain overtook me, and I writhed within its grasp, my screams unending while the laughter came again. I was lost. I was drowning.
There is no escape.
Across from me, Carter began to move, crawling towards the sound of my cries on his hands and knees, his mouth open as if to call for me, but no words came—instead he retched, a terror like I’d never known filling me when a stream of black spewed from his mouth and took flight, a thousand flies gushing from between his lips to fill the space between us.
There was only screaming. Screaming.
Screaming.
“Avery!”
Hands were shaking me, holding me where I thrashed and bucked on the mattress. My eyes opened to the dim light from the hallway, Ethan above me—his eyes wide. I gasped for air, my throat raw and burning and he loosened his hold a bit.
“You’re dreaming.” He still hadn’t let me go. “It’s just a dream. You’re safe.”
I was shaking in his grasp, unable to rid myself of the images still flooding my mind. My skin crawled with the feel of the unseen evil that had called to me and I writhed against the sheet in an effort to escape it.
“Easy,” Ethan murmured, shifting to sit next to me on the bed, “You’re okay. I’m right here.”
He was shirtless, clad only in a pair of sweats similar to my own, and I reached for him, my hand sliding across the muscle of his stomach. I felt him tense as my fingers dipped just below the waistband of his sweats, grasping at them to pull him closer. I was operating blindly, the need for safety overwhelming any rational thought.
“Avery.” His voice was rough, the warning clear.
“Please,” I whispered, “Please don’t leave me.” Ethan’s silhouette filled my gaze, but my mind was still fixed on the horrors of my dream. I was shaking too hard to do anything but hang onto him, as if letting go would plunge me back into the world of my nightmare.
He paused then gently pulled my hand free and stood. “I’ll be right back,” he told me. I choked on a cry when he disappeared, curling into an abandoned ball beneath the sheets, a low keening sound of terror escaping me with every breath. My eyes were open, fixed on the bedroom door, afraid to close them for even a moment. I wanted to call to him, scream for him—but there was only the low moan of fear on every exhale, the seconds stretching out into an eternity.
Then he was back, closing the bedroom door behind him, giving me one last look at his broad expanse of shoulders tapering down into a well-muscled torso before the light from the hall blinked out, encasing him in shadows. He approached the bed and I saw the gun in his hands that he placed onto the bedside table, along with his phone, before lifting the blankets and climbing in beside me. I moved to him at once, my body winding around his; my arms and legs clinging, almost sliding on top of him before he was fully settled. I could still feel the shuddering remains of the voice against my skin, the memory of it haunting me. I needed something real to hold onto and ground me again in this world. Ethan gave a grunt of surprise, then slid further down, his arms wrapping around me, locking me in place. My cheek settled against his chest, the sound of his heartbeat moving through me. It wasn’t enough, though—not enough to keep my hands from moving across his chest and down over his stomach again, my nails dragging lightly up his sides. My touch was constant, restless, my body moving against him. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop breathing, allowing the solid, muscled wall of man beneath me to chase away the images, to bring me back to life.
Ethan had stilled beneath my touch, though I could hear the ragged edge of his breathing and the sudden quickening of his heartbeat when my fingers moved over his nipple before continuing down, counting the taut ridges of his abs before my palm flattened and slid further. He growled then, the sound reverberating through my entire body, and I shivered, his own hard need pressing against my stomach. I knew I should stop, but I wanted him. I wanted the feeling of him between my thighs, the sink of him into my body, filling me, claiming me. I wanted the thrust of him to drive out the fear and leave me shuddering in his wake.
My face lifted as my hand wrapped around him, my lips pressing to his collarbone before moving to his neck and the rough stubble of his jawline. I whispered low into his ear. “Fuck me.”
He reacted immediately to my words like my thoughts had been his—his grip tightening to flip me back onto the sheets. His hands came to claim my wrists, trapping them against the mattress just before his lips came crashing down in a hard, heated kiss that stole my breath and caused me to arch beneath him. My legs wrapped around his waist and suddenly I hated the feel of the clothes between us, trying unsuccessfully to free my hands so that I could strip down for him, but his hold on me tightened, not allowing me any freedom. I whimpered into the kiss, my tongue stroking desperately over his, his hips pinning mine with the weight of his body, tormenting me with the promise and denial of the hard shaft that left me aching with need.
He broke the kiss and I gasped, managing a single word. “Please.”
He let me go, shifting back to tug my shirt over my head. My fingers fastened on the material, yanking it up in my haste to have it gone, then fell back and reached for him, only to find that he’d stilled above me.
“What?” I asked, my fingers moving down his chest. “What’s wrong?”
“When did you get that mark on your shoulder?”
I paused, flustered—looking over at my shoulder where the
brand was gleaming a dull, angry red in the moonlight. Embarrassment washed over me—I’d forgotten about it. “A few days ago,” I reached for my shirt again, wanting it covered. “It looks worse than it is.”
Ethan caught my wrists before I found my shirt, jerking them up and pinning them to the mattress again. I winced at the pull in my shoulder but didn’t fight him—the intensity in his eyes told me this wasn’t a game. He loomed over me, his body pressing against mine and I caught my breath, staring up at him when he growled out one word. “How?”
I didn’t bother trying to lie. “The first night I got here. When I broke down at the factory and slept in my car. I woke up with it.” I shifted beneath him, cautiously testing his grip on my wrists and finding he had me trapped.
Slowly he pulled back, his hands leaving me when he shifted upright, his expression tense. “You should have told me.”
The fact he’d pulled back was like a dagger through me, unable to stop the tears that welled in my eyes. “Why? What does it matter?”
He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. “Because I never would have sent you there if I’d known they’d marked you.”
“You know about the marks?”
“Avery. Every single person we think was killed by the Templars died with that mark on their shoulder.”
My breath left me. “What?”
“It’s a death mark,” he said bluntly. “Some have it before they die, some after—but they all have it. They aren’t trying to convert you. They want to kill you.”
Into Dust: The Industry City Trilogy - Book One Page 14